Well, good morning. It's good to see you. It's good to be in the pulpit again. It's been a while. It's been good to be off. It's good to be back here. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the book of 1 Timothy. We will be in chapter 3. I'm trying to get everything kind of in order here. This morning we're going to read verses 1-7, and we will be looking at approximately half of the qualifications for elders this morning and then two weeks from today I'll resume and we'll pick up the rest of them. I wanted to stretch it out a little. We had talked as elders about someone preaching about the qualifications of an elder so that we could all get our minds focused on the right things in which to focus when we're looking for an elder or a pastor. And especially for a paid pastor, we want one that is honoring to God and is beneficial to men. But we don't look to men first. to find out whom we should call. But we look to God. So we go into His Word. We're in the book of 1 Timothy. And the question might be raised, well, if you're looking at the qualifications for an elder, where would you look in the Bible to find that? Well, I suppose an easy answer is not 1 Chronicles. We wouldn't do that. But we wouldn't exclude it if there is anything there that is pertinent. But we would go especially to the New Covenant. And in the New Covenant, there are three letters that are called the pastorals, the pastoral letters, the letters from Paul to pastors concerning who they should be, what they should be like, what they should be doing, whom they should call down during church. No, I'm just backsliding a little. But it's the Word of God that tells us what we should look for in an elder, and it's especially 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. So, in 1 Timothy, we have this place that tells us, and then in chapter 1 of Titus, Paul again goes through several qualifications that he wants Titus to look at when he goes to ordain elders in every church. We want to do that. I may be taking this out of place in my notes, but I was in Snyder, Texas from 92 to 98. And while we were there, one of the pastors of the bigger churches, there were two pretty good sized churches there in Snyder, and we were one of the smaller churches. But one of the bigger churches pastor left. Actually, he retired. He didn't leave. He stayed in town. But he was into his mid to later seventies and ready to retire. And I went to the bank one day, and I saw one of the cashiers that I'd see nearly every week. And she said, Brother Cliff, I want to ask you something. I said, OK, what's that? She said, when we're looking for a pastor, should we be looking at how old he is, how many children he has, what color car he drives, how many dogs does he have? And I'm like, so where did you get that? She says, well, we were all given a piece of paper that has all the different things, and some of those are on it, that we think we should look at in a pastor. And I'm like, no, no. You should look for spiritual qualifications. And you need to go to 1 Timothy to find those. And she was like, well, that's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. I wanted to see what you said. And I said, well, I'm the authority. No, I didn't say that. I said, but you know, there's right and wrong ways to do things. And we in our culture have forgotten God says. We don't know what God has said. And furthermore, most of us don't want to know what God has said. And I'm talking about the American church today. They want to know, well, what say the people? We've got a church. We're looking for a particular type of person in our church. And we're therefore going to ask these people in our church, what would you like in a pastor? What would you like a pastor to be doing? All these are grief to godly Christians. Because it says the church is going the way of the world, not the way of the Lord. So, you're looking for a title for this sermon. We're about to get to it. Negative Qualifications for an Elder. And I put the negative first because I'm a very negative person. Not really. But my family's laughing. All right, that's one. I've told him that once. But because the very first qualification is put in the negative. There are seven negatives and nine positive qualifications. So that tells us that Paul wants him to know, wants Timothy to know, that there are nine negative qualifications for an elder. Now, what do I mean by negative qualification? A negative qualification is something that must not be in the pastor's life. It's negative. It cannot be there. And a positive is something not that can be there, but must be there. So we're going to look at, in a moment, seven negative qualifications of an elder. So I need to get back to my notes and introduce this. We'll have the introduction and we'll have seven points and no point. Introduction. Paul introduces this whole idea in chapter 3 by saying, this is a true saying, or this is a faithful saying. Some tend to want to tie that with what he has said about praying in chapter 2, and he's capping it off and saying, well, this is a faithful saying. But more likely, he is talking about qualifications for an elder and he wants to underscore it. Listen, here is a faithful saying. Get a hold of this. If a man desires the office of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be. Okay, now we want to not go any farther right now. First of all, in a bishop, you want one that truly desires the office of a bishop. I have heard of people who said, and I've talked with people who have said, I did not want to be a pastor. I still don't want to be a pastor. And they were saying it with kind of a, I'm so holy, this is what I'm doing. And what he meant by that was the church had called him to be their pastor. And he didn't really want to be a pastor. He hadn't studied to be a pastor. He didn't desire the office. But they wanted him to be, and so They're calling me. I must be called to preach. And we need to understand before we go looking for a pastor, that there are two calls on a pastor. There's the call of God on a man, and then there's the call of the church in that order. If God has not called a man, He shouldn't be being considered. We should first find out, is God calling him? And when the man realizes that God is truly calling him to be a pastor, he says, alright, I surrender. I will be that. And he desires the office then. He desires the work. He recognizes and as we as elders bump into someone like this, or we find someone in the church, we show them it's going to be a persecuted work. It's going to be a difficult work. It's going to be an afflicted work. But it's going to be a blessed work. And it's going to be a wonderful work in the eyes of God and for God's people. So if a man doesn't desire it, don't go farther with that. It's good that he desires the church to want him and to call him and to see that God has called him. But if he doesn't see that God is leading him that way and he doesn't agree with it, that's not the last word, but that's one of the first words. So then the church can begin to think about, well, is God calling him to be our pastor? And so, we want someone that is truly looking and understanding it is a hard work, it's a difficult work, but it's a good work. And it is a fruitful work. And it is a blessed work. I've been in the ministries covering about 40 years. I was pastoring before I met Cheryl. And believe it or not, I'm still pastoring. 40 years later. It's probably because of Cheryl that I'm still pastoring. But I thank the Lord for her. I tell you, I'm going to share this. The night I asked her to marry me, we pulled over in a little parking place, and I said, can I ask you a question? I may have told you all this already. And she thought I was talking about some question in theology. Can I ask you a question? She says, yeah. And then I said, would you marry me? She's like, uh, yes. And I'm like, OK. I don't know what to do now. But the next question was, you remember, can you truly be a pastor's wife? He said, yes. I really believe God has called me to do that. I'm like, well, OK, that's good. We might go somewhere. And by God's grace, we have served in the Lord. All right. Now, he desires a good work. It's good to desire the work, but it's not good to desire any honor or preferment the work might bring you. If you're serving to be recognized, to get fame, or to get money, you're really probably in the wrong work. You are in the wrong work, but you're not going to be making much money anyway. So, going on from there, Paul says in verse 2, a bishop then must be. In the Greek, it's one little three-letter word. Di, D-E-I. It is necessary. It is necessary. It's not optional. It is absolutely necessary. So, what are the qualities we should look for? Where do you go? Right here. Paul has already told them in chapter 2. that it must not be a woman. Look with me at chapter 2 and verse 12. But I suffer not a woman to teach or to assert authority over the man, but to be in silence. So it must not be a woman, it must be a man. So he's now showing what kind of man he should be. He must be. And so, in this passage, we notice that there are some negatives and there are some positives. They are not listed in this order. Okay? You'll notice a bishop then must be blameless or without blame. But then on the other side, he must be the husband of one wife. That's positive. He must be vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach. All of those are positive things he must have. And then in verse 3, back to the negative, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, But patient, back to the positive, not a brawler, back to the negative, not covetous. Back to the positive, one that rules well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. Explanation, for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? To the negative, not a novice. lest being lifted up with pride, he should fall into the condemnation of the devil." Positive, moreover, he must have a good report of them who are without, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. So what I've done is notice that there are negatives in this and there are positives, and I wanted to lump the negatives together and then lump the positives together. But I want you to know, in thought, he is going from one thing to another, and his thought blends well with those, because he must be blameless, both in the relation to his wife, husband of one wife, and in his relation to others in the church, vigilant, sober, good behavior, given to hospitality. How does he act in the church? Apt to teach. What does he do in the church? And then in his relationship to all men, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but a patient man, not a brawler, not covetous, one that rules well his own house. So you see, he is going in a logical manner from one end of the scale, hitting into the relations with the church and his wife, and then in his relations with all men. But I'm not doing that. I mean, if I were expositing the whole book of 1 Timothy, I might do that. But what I want to do is fix it in our mind what he must not have. And then fix it in our mind what he must have. And the must-haves will be in two weeks. The must-nots are this week. In the negatives, there are two ways of seeing the negative here. In four words, Paul uses a word that indicates the negative in the subjunctive and the imperative mood, not in the indicative. The indicative is everyday narrative language. He did this. He's going to do that. The subjunctive is, he might do this. He should do this. He shouldn't do that. The imperative is, he must do this. He must not do that. And may, M-E, long E, is used in both the subjunctive and the imperative mood. So none of these are indicative. None of these are just saying what some pastors have. All of these are saying what they must have and must not be. And then three of the words have the letter A attached to the front of the word. One of them has a N, and it's very similar to our English, an, when it comes before a vowel, The alpha, the A, adds an N to it, but it's still the alpha privative, which means it's the negative of the word he's about to read, to speak. Okay. So what I'm going to do is the three words that have the alpha in the beginning, and then we're going to look at the four words that have the may, must not. Okay. First of all, It's hard to read it the way it is accented. If I read it a special way, I think you could understand what it means. An epileptus. I'm not saying he is an epileptic, but the an means not epileptic. Well, epilepsy, oh boy, I'm really, here we go, is involved in the act of an epileptic seizure where the disease can be thought of as seizing control of the body. We call that a seizure. Our word has the negative on added to it. The makeup of the word literally means not epi-upon, lepton-apprehended or taken. Therefore, smoothing it out, not one that can be apprehended. When epilepsy strikes, a seizure happens to a person, he is taken upon by his disease, his or her disease. The disease takes him into a seizure. When a person morally is epileptic, he is one that is to be laid hold of. So Thayer's Greek dictionary says for an epileptos, not able to be apprehended. Bringing it into our cultural humanity, it means someone who cannot be rightly apprehended. Now one may have been apprehended or put in jail, but investigation will prove that it wasn't rightly done. For this reason, it is improper to have jail or prison inmates to be officers in the church. They should be unepileptos. They should be blameless. On the other extreme, it does not mean they must be without sin. It's just that they're clear from the sins that are true crimes and should outwardly be punished. as criminals should be. That's on epilaton. The second word is amacon. Here we go. Amacon. Again, you might not understand what he's talking about, but if you saw it transliterated, you could see the alpha privative, M-A-C-H-O, with a noon on the end. I, macho. Not macho in actions. James says, whence come wars among you? Come they not of your lusts, which war against the flesh, war against the soul? Matthew 5.39 tells the believer who loves the Lord Jesus Christ that when you are smitten on the one cheek, you are to turn the other cheek. Paul's talking about the good fight of faith is not a physical battle. Would you want someone that's more fit to be a college football coach than a pastor? Not that he couldn't be or have been that, but you want someone that is not a fighter. One that is not quarrelsome, as some of your translations have. Abhorring fighting. Later we'll see, not a brawler. And it's because of the man's work for Christ, to show the love of Christ in men's lives, that he must not be a fighter. But be one who is loving and even really ready to turn the other cheek. And then the third word that has alpha privative is aphelargaron. Philos is the word for love. Argaron is the word for silver. So alpha with it is not loving silver. Literally not a lover of money. Silver was the weight of which was their money. Money is neither good nor bad. But how you use this tool is either good or bad. Afelagaran. Money is not a root of all evil. But the love of it is. Matthew 21, 12-13, Christ says, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all men, all peoples. And you have made it a den of thieves, money grabbers. He turned over their money tables. Remember Ananias and Sapphira? who because of the love of money sold a piece of property and kept back part of it and told Peter and John, that's what we sold it for. We want to give it all to the church. Who knows if it was even half? We don't know. The point is, Peter says, why have you lied to the Holy Ghost? They were walking in the shoes of their former leader, Judas Iscariot, who for 30 pieces of silver sold the Prince of Peace. Are you a lover of silver? I pray God you would confess of that sin and be done with it. That brings us to the other kinds of negative words. I'll try to be quick. The first of which is me paroinon, not given to wine. It literally means one who does not sit long at wine or not drunken. This passage Now let me explain something here. This particular qualification, this particular place in Scripture, I am sharing my personal belief, not what the church holds to be absolutely essential to every person. Okay? There's a lot of different views on wine. But, I want to share with you what I believe the scriptures teach as my conviction. Okay? Opera or none. This passage does not prohibit drinking alcoholic wine. Though, I believe there are some that put together with it do prohibit it. Here it is forbidden for one to sit long at the wine which he does drink. Whatever that wine is, he is not to sit long at it. Drinking wine is not a way to pass time. Rather it is for quenching thirst and celebrating special occasions under good moderation. The definition is one that is identified as one beside his wine. Not given to wine is a good translation, yet remember that wine in the New Testament times is either alcoholic or non-alcoholic. F.F. Bruce notes in his commentary on the Book of Acts that all the ancients had ways of keeping their grape juice from fermenting. And thus Paul could be saying that the man should be one that keeps himself from becoming one that is identified with his luxurious drink of whatever kind it was. Not only was it best not to always use water, but sometimes a little wine, grape juice I believe, for one's stomach issues. But here Paul says, don't only use wine, as a luxurious drink without which you can't make it. It goes without saying that one should not always be beside his alcoholic wine. For in that case, he wouldn't even be sober as encouraged in verse 2. He would simply be drunk. Now, in Fort Worth, I was a member of a church I think it was called Fort Worth Baptist Church, but I can't remember. A pastor's name was George Campbell. Before we had gotten there, we didn't know this, but he had gotten a DWI, driving while intoxicated. While we were there, he got another DWI and was put in jail, and still in jail on Wednesday night when we had our church meeting. And so they informed us that, well, you need to know Pastor Campbell's in jail tonight. OK, are we all going to go down to the jail and have worship there? What are we going to do? Well, we started talking about it, and they had a meeting a couple of weeks later and tried to decide, what do we need to do? Their answer was, we need to do nothing. Alcoholism is like any other disease. You're not responsible for it. It's like falling out of a tree and breaking your arm. So they left him on as their pastor. He got out of jail. He didn't preach for three or four weeks. We had already left the church at this time. And about four or five weeks later, he gets back into the pulpit. And about four or five weeks later, he gets DWI number three. Why do I say that? Because he considered himself a moderation drinker. And that's not the case with salt. We need to be careful when you're drinking alcoholic wine that you don't allow that to get further control of you than you know. Okay, second one. May Plankton, not a striker, An elder should not be one who is quick to strike out at those he sees as having wronged him. He should be able to hold his temper and have a good control of his emotions so that he doesn't run off half cocked, ready to fight. This type of man should be a meek, kind, and mild man. Yet this does not mean weak or wimpy. He certainly should defend his family, even with his life, but be able to suffer wrongs against himself unless he must defend his life. The dictionary says of a pugnacious spirit always ready to jump on a theological dispute both physically and figuratively. We should be valiant for the truth, but we must be meek in restraining our emotions and our passions from striking out at others with both our fists or our tongues. The pastor should be excellent examples of refraining from giving in to those passions at the drop of a hat. I respect the western frontier spirit of independence and something of its individuality. But the gospel needs to have folks show the world what love is all about. After all, the moral law pegs are to love God first and also to love our neighbor as ourselves. On these hang all the Law and the Prophets. And I think a pugnacious fighting spirit ought to be hanged on them also and done away with. Not one that strikes. Me ascogirde. Not one of base or Lower gain. Nothing is wrong with honest gain or money gotten by work, but gain gotten by wrong or wicked means is forbidden. Six days off people to work and do everything needed for their life so that they might live a peaceable life and profitable both to themselves and to others. and that they might have a peaceful Sabbath day to the Lord. But money earned from a forbidden lifestyle, whether that may be in selling sinful things, or selling lawful things for too much money, or basically participating in robbery or stealing from one's neighbor, is all forbidden by the law. and not fit for a pastor of the gospel. These are wrong for all, but especially for the man of God. He should not be one who likes to live by base gain. I have misplaced one somewhere. Neophyton. It's where we get our word neophyte. Neo means new. Phyte is a plant. Not a new plant. Not a new Christian. It doesn't mean not a new or a young man. A young man might be an elder, but it does indicate something about his time of being a Christian and his wisdom gained since then. An older man is not qualified if he's a new convert to Christ. He might be physically an elder, but he can't be spiritually. On the same note, that young man who's been a Christian for a number of years might, not necessarily must, be eligible. But he must not be a neophyte. Natural age, never the determining factor, but maturity in the faith is what is under discussion here. If a man is to be a leader in the church, He must be one who has found out by experience and learning how he should walk and guide his house. A new learner must be able to grow, certainly, but it should already have the growth necessary for leading under his belt. How could a man lead others where he has not himself gone before, at least having considered the principles involved in the cases in which he leads?" So he must not be a new believer in the faith. And that's not to say a new believer in the faith is evil or anything of the kind. Timothy probably had been a Christian for maybe less than three years when he began pastoring. But he didn't begin pastoring the first year or year and a half. Paul, when he was converted, look at Galatians, he didn't comment with anybody. He went into silent training. Fourteen years! So we need men that are seasoned and that are loving, that are gracious, that are not pugnacious, not fighters, and certainly not lovers of money, but lovers of Christ. I don't know if I rounded all of those up in that summation. But the next time we meet in two weeks, we'll take up what must be there in the pastor. Let's pray.